Jason Baird Jackson, Director of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures at Indiana University Bloomington

Posts from the ‘Mathers Museum’ Category

An Indiana University event known as #IUDay is nearly here. Scheduled for Wednesday, April 10, 2019, #IUDay is a celebration of Indiana University. It is a day of special events, of sharing stories of the university, and for gathering together friends and supporters to work together to achieve special goals. Last year, in the days right before, and on, #IUDay, sixty-one friends donated to the Mathers Museum’s first #IUDay crowdfunding campaign. Working together, they contributed funds to enable us to launch Traditional Arts Indiana’s Indiana Heritage Fellowship program. Ours was a successful first effort. It was so successful that the Indiana University Foundation encouraged us to take on two campaigns this year, a fact that means that we are seeking to raise more than double the level of funding we received last year. This is an exciting prospect, but it is also daunting. I hope that everyone who reads this post can help us meet our goals. They are good goals. Let me describe them.

Building on the success of last year’s effort launching the Indiana Heritage Fellowship program, we are this year seeking support for its companion program, also new. This is the TAI Master-Apprentice program. The goal here is $2500 and, as of the moment that I am writing this, we have raised $567 from 11 generous donors. With two days to go, we really need your help. Please consider making a gift large or small. Last year 61 donors supported our efforts and we are eager to (=need to) increase this number this year. The good news is that, when successful, this effort will do great work across Indiana communities, providing resources and support for diverse tradition bearers to transmit their skills and knowledge to eager apprentices. This work benefits Indiana communities, the state and ultimately the whole country. If you would like to learn about the first class of TAI masters and apprentices, check out this year’s booklet and learn about the beadwork artists, netmakers, drummakers, ironsmiths, and ballet folklórico performers working together this year.

Our other campaign aims to fund K-12 field trips to visit the Mathers Museum on campus in Bloomington. Field trips are an impactful highlight for most school students, but they have become increasingly rare for most students, as budget cuts continue to take their toll. Visits to the Mathers Museum introduce students to cultural diversity worldwide and in Indiana and the US. Museum visits also introduce students to the commonalities of the human experience and to the disciplines–folklore studies, anthropology, ethnomusicology, history, etc.–that build up our understandings of human existence, past and present. As of the time of this writing, this campaign has gathered $1220 from 18 friends of the museum. Here too our goal is $2500, thus we need your help in this effort also. (This funding will enable us to provide the funds that schools need in order to come to the museum and engage with our programs and exhibitions.

Thanks to all who have given so far. Thanks to all who will consider giving. Whether you give or do not give, please, please share these links online and urge others to support the museum’s work. When an #IUDay link is shared online it results in an average of $97 dollars in support, so even if you cannot give $10 or more dollars now, you can help the museum and these worthy projects by spreading the word.

Debra Bolaños (left), a ballet folklórico dancer and instructor in East Chicago, Indiana, and Harold Klosterkemper (right), a fiddle player from Decatur County, Indiana, will soon be honored for their lifetime achievement as Indiana traditional artists. They will be recognized as Indiana Heritage Fellows in a special ceremony on April 27, 2019. Learn more about the event here.

MAR is the journal of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Indiana University’s museum of ethnography, ethnology, and cultural history. The new issue is particularly focused on reports recounting projects undertaken at the MMWC and by its partners, friends, and regular collaborators.

MMWC partners C. Kurt Dewhurst and Timothy Lloyd report on the larger Sino-US collaboration project that the MMWC has been an active participant in and Marsha Bol, another participant in that collaboration, shares background on a different project, her recent exhibition on beadwork at the Museum of International Folk Art. Regular MAR contributor Kerim Friedman is joined by his collaborator Gabrielle de Seta for a discussion of the Sensefield exhibition that they organized as a companion to the Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival.

The issue concludes with a book review and an exhibition review by Otto. Both focus on innovative projects of special relevance to museum anthropology in African contexts.

Thanks go to the reviewers and others who helped with this issue behind the scenes. MAR’s transition to teenager status provides an opportunity to thank the librarians and library staff who have worked to support and encourage the journal since its beginnings. Thanks also to all of the graduate assistants who have worked on the journal over the years.

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The MMWC has a huge amount of exhibition related news. This week I devote a series of posts to highlighting some of these developments.

Huang Biyu introduces her work as a textile artist to visitors to the Yulin Museum, which is hosting the exhibition Quilting Art and Tradition–People, Handcrafts, and Community Life (the Chinese version of Quilts of Southwest China), March 16, 2019. (Photograph courtesy of the Anthropological Museum of Guangxi)

After a U.S. tour that saw the collaboratively curated exhibition Quilts of Southwest China move from the (1) Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, Michigan, USA) to the (2) International Quilt Study Center and Museum (Lincoln, Nebraska, USA), (3) the Mathers Museum of World Cultures (Bloomington, Indiana, USA) and the (4) Museum of International Folk Art (Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA), the exhibition is now at its third stop in China. Titled in China Quilting Art and Tradition—People, Handcrafts, and Community Life, the exhibition has just opened at the (3) Yulin Museum (Yulin, Guangxi, PRC). It has previously been presented at the (1) Anthropological Museum of Guangxi (Nanning, Guangxi, PRC) and the (2) Yunnan Nationalities Museum (Kunming, Yunnan, PRC). The exhibition is one of several collaborative projects arising out of joint work supported generously by the Henry Luce Foundation and various other American and Chinese funding agencies. The American Folklore Society and the China Folklore Society are coordinating partners for the larger effort that includes the museum partnership linking the Mathers Museum of World Cultures to the MSU Museum, the Museum of International Folk Art, the Yunnan Nationalities Museum, the Anthropological Museum of Guangxi and the and the Guizhou Nationalities Museum (Guiyang, Guixzhou, PRC). The exhibition was jointly produced by the six museum partners and was co-curated by Lijun Zhang and Marsha MacDowell.

Colleagues from the three Chinese partner museums (AMGX, YNNM, GZMN) attended the exhibition opening in Yunlin as did featured textile artist Huang Biyu, who did an artist’s demonstration and worked with a large group of local students in an exploration of Chinese quilting design. Photographs from the opening events taken by Chu Chu and Li Jie of the AMGX are shared here.

Did you miss the exhibition or would you like to do a deeper dive into the world of minority textiles in Southwest China? The bilingual catalogue edited by Marsha MacDowell and Lijun Zhang is available from Indiana University Press. Find it on the press website here: http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=808361

Thanks to our friends at the AMGX for managing the Chinese tour of the jointly produced exhibition and thanks to the staff of the Yulin Museum for hosting it. It is tremendous to think that a jointly produced exhibition that first opened at the MSUM in 2015 is still traveling and reaching new audiences.

Congratulations to Jon and to all of the authors who contributed to The Expressive Lives of Elders. Thanks to the peer-reviewers, to everyone who has already purchased a copy, and to everyone at the IU Press, the IU Libraries, and the Mathers Museum of World Cultures who is supporting the Material Vernaculars series so enthusiastically.

In honor of Native American Heritage month, Google today celebrated renowned Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians artist, Amanda Crowe (1928-2004). Born and raised on North Carolina’s Qualla Boundary, Amanda Crowe is perhaps best known for her fluid and expressive animal carvings, which have been collected and praised by museums and art galleries across North America. She is also famous as an educator. After training at the Art Institute of Chicago, she returned to North Carolina and took up a post as studio art teacher at Cherokee High School. Here, she trained hundreds of students from her community in the art of woodcarving and influenced generations of Cherokee artists. The Mathers Museum of World Cultures collected several of her works and displayed them in the 2015-2016 exhibition, “Cherokee Craft, 1973.” Her bear sculptures instantly became staff favorites. (Here is a screenshot from the Doodle. Here is a link to the Doodle video. https://youtu.be/Je2du-WEnPQ

The Doodle video was made in cooperation with Amanda Crowe’s nephew, William “Bill” H. Crowe, Jr., and the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, from whom the Mathers Museum of World Cultures obtained its Cherokee collection in 1973.

Emily Buhrow Rogers is a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology at Indiana University, where she is also a research associate of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures. She was the curator of the museum’s exhibition Cherokee Craft, 1973. Her dissertation research focuses on craft and environmental knowledge among the Choctaw people of Mississippi.

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I will be doing a gallery talk at the Sam Noble Museum on Sunday, June 24 at 2:00 pm in the Higginbotham Gallery, which is where the exhibition Putting Baskets to Work in Southwest China is now on display.

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This guest post by Jon Kay, Curator of Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures provides Jon with the opportunity to share the first of the documentary videos arising from work that he and colleagues pursued together in Nandan County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in December, 2017. It is the final post in a eleven-part series relating to travel in China and specific work in Nandan County that began with a post on January 2, 2018 and continued most recently through post 9, a guest post by Carrie Hertz of the Museum of International Folk Art. These earlier posts are accessible here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

Lu Bingzhao uses a billhook to make a wooden mallet or maul. December 15, 2017. Photograph by Kurt Dewhurst.

I was in Southwest China as part of a joint team of researchers from the United States, the Anthropological Museum of Guangxi, and the Nandan Baiku Yao Eco-Museum who were documenting basket and textile traditions of the Baiku Yao people in Nandan County, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Our team visited a home in Manjiang village to inventory the baskets collected and used by a local family. As the fieldworkers worked photographing and measuring baskets, Mr. Lu Bingzhao came into the house and picked up a mallet, which he showed everyone and then went outside. I did not speak Mandarin or the local Baiku Yao dialect, but I felt he had something he wanted to show us. I went outside and saw him lay the mallet on the trunk of small felled tree in order to get a rough measurement; it was then that I realized he was going to make a mallet. I grabbed my camera and began shooting. I didn’t have a tripod with me, so I didn’t expect to shoot the entire process, but I became enthralled with how the elder worked. Two of his grandchildren played nearby, and they often stopped to watch him work and to interact with him. Neighbors and family members stopped by to visit as they returned home from picking greens. Mr. Bingzhao worked steadily as people came and went. He was skilled at using the billhook. With heavy chops, he used the hook to quickly remove the excess wood. Then he delicately shaved the mallet’s handle smooth, using a pulling motion. Finally at the end of the video, just as he completes the mallet, he gives it to his daughter-in-law. Tree became tool and gift in little more than an hour.

I was told that mallets, like the one made in this video, are commonly used to pound rice straw for sandals and to set the poles for warping a loom, the later activity I witnessed the next day when a group of weavers came to the Nandan Baiku Yao Eco-Museum office, where I was staying. I am sure the mallet probably has many other uses in the daily life of the community. For sure, the young woman would find utility in the gift. This video was totally unplanned, as the shaky recording and odd camera angles reveal, but I was compelled to edit this footage into this short portrait, to document the making of this tool. Reflecting reoccurring themes in my scholarship, it also demonstrates how craft can connect an elder to his family and community.”

A number of poles of this type are driven through holes in the paving stones in the museum’s plaza/parking area. This large flat space is ideal for the complex and space-intensive work of winding and arranging yarn for loom weaving. December 17, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

A Baiku Yao woman uses a mallet to drive posts used in preparing a loom for weaving. December 17, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Technical Note: The video was shot with a Canon 80D camera with a RØDE stereo microphone attached to the camera’s hot-shoe mount.

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IU Day is a 24-hour, binge-watching, social-sharing, IU-wearing, online celebration of Indiana University and the people who make IU possible (that’s you). Maybe you’re a student getting your start. Maybe you’re an alumnus well on your way. Maybe you’re a parent, friend, or fan with a special place in your heart for “old IU.” In any case, these IU connections are cause for celebration.

#IUDay is happening tomorrow (April 18, 2018)!

The museum is participating in #IUDay in a number of ways. Some are surprises for tomorrow. Some will be accessible online, while others–such as our participation in the #IUDay scavenger hunt, will happen in the museum’s galleries. One item that is not a surprise is our inaugural crowdfunding campaign. I hope that you will check it out. You can help us meet our #IUDay goal by sharing the link via email or social media (there are buttons to help you with this). You can definitely also help us meet our goal by making a gift. With one day to go 43 donors have gotten us to 83% of our $2000 goal. Please help us get all the way there before #IUDay ends.

What is our crowdfunding campaign for? Great question. To find out, I hope that you will take a minute and twenty seconds and watch our brief campaign video and learn about the Indiana Heritage Awards program that–with your support–we will be launching later this year.

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This post is about a portion of my recent trip to China. The main focus of this trip was collaborative ethnographic research in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, but other activities happened along the way. This post about the morning of December 8, 2017 and my companions for the day were two friends and colleagues–Dr. Carrie Hertz, Curator of Textiles and Dress at the Museum of International Folk Art and Dr. Jon Kay, Director of Traditional Arts Indiana and Curator of Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Indiana University.

After traveling from the U.S. to Beijing, our first morning in China was devoted to a visit to the Indiana University China Gateway Office, which is adjacent to Tsinghua University in Beijing. There we met with China Gateway Director Steven Yin and IUPUI Recruitment Coordinator and Assistant Office Manager Peter Wen. We spent some time at the Gateway discussing China-related projects (including our own) and then Peter walked us across the Tsinghua campus for our visit to the remarkable Tsinghua University Art Museum (TAM), where Steven had arranged for us to meet with colleagues and see the museum.

IU Alumni (L-R) Jon Kay, Carrie Hertz, and Peter Yen (IUPUI Recruitment Coordinator and Assistant Office Manager at the China Gateway) pose with the IU Flag on the campus of IU partner Tsinghua University in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

(L-R) Jason Jackson, Carrie Hertz, and Peter Yen pose with the IU Flag on the campus of IU partner Tsinghua University in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

An exterior view of the Tsinghua University Art Museum (TAM), Beijing, China. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

(L-R) Jason Jackson and Jon Kay get their first glimpse of the Tsinghua University Art Museum (TAM), Beijing, China. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

An exterior view of the Tsinghua University Art Museum (TAM), Beijing, China. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

At TAM we met with Ge Xiuzhi from the research department and Wang Ying from the education and external relations department. They were generous hosts with whom we shared tea and luxurious visits to the museum’s spacious and beautiful galleries. Our interests gravitated to some of our favorite topics–textiles and dress, architecture, and furniture. Here are some images from “Architecture China,” an exhibition that tells the story of a group of vernacular architecture researchers while also introducing architecture students (and everyone else) to the key techniques in the national architectural tradition.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scenes from the exhibition “Architecture China: Specialized Exhibition of Tsinghua Construction Discipline” at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scenes from the textile portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scenes from the textile portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” Photograph by Jon Kay.

We could have spent more than one day just studying the various sections of Tsinghua Treasures. We regretted neglecting some wonderful sections, including those devoted to ceramics, painting, and calligraphy.

Scenes from the paintings and caligraphy portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the paintings and caligraphy portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the paintings and caligraphy portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the paintings and caligraphy portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scenes from the ceramics portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Posing with an “IU Red” bowl in the ceramics portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. (L-R) Jason Jackson, Ge Xiuzhi, and Peter Wen. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scenes from the ceramics portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

We focused intently on the furniture gallery. As with the architecture exhibition, there were excellent hands-on educational stations in this gallery that helped one better understand the techniques and woods used in Chinese furniture.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Jackson.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scenes from the furniture portion of the “Tsinghua Treasures: Exhibition of Tsinghua University Art Museum Collection.” December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Staff from the Tsinghua University Art Museum visited Indiana University during May 2017. On that visit I attended a presentation at the Eskenazi Museum of Art at which the Eskenazi staff (and I) were given a exciting overview of this new museum’s work and collections. It was wonderful to be able to follow up on this presentation and to see the TAM itself in the company of very generous hosts and my wonderful colleagues.

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Just in time for the holiday that is at its center, I am happy to trumpet the publication of Framing Sukkot: Tradition and Transformation in Jewish Vernacular Architecture by Gabrielle Berlinger. Framing Sukkot is the third title in the Material Vernaculars series and it is appearing in the world just as the Jewish holiday of Sukkot is about to begin for 2017/5778!

The sukkah, the symbolic ritual home built during the annual Jewish holiday of Sukkot, commemorates the temporary structures that sheltered the Israelites as they journeyed across the desert after the exodus from Egypt. Despite the simple Biblical prescription for its design, the remarkable variety of creative expression in the construction, decoration, and use of the sukkah, in both times of peace and national upheaval, reveals the cultural traditions, political convictions, philosophical ideals, and individual aspirations that the sukkah communicates for its builders and users today.

In this ethnography of contemporary Sukkot observance, Gabrielle Anna Berlinger examines the powerful role of ritual and vernacular architecture in the formation of self and society in three sharply contrasting Jewish communities: Bloomington, Indiana; South Tel Aviv, Israel; and Brooklyn, New York. Through vivid description and in-depth interviews, she demonstrates how constructing and decorating sukkah and performing the weeklong holiday’s rituals of hospitality provide unique circumstances for creative expression, social interaction, and political struggle. Through an exploration of the intersections between the rituals of Sukkot and contemporary issues, such as the global Occupy movement, Berlinger finds that the sukkah becomes a tangible expression of the need for housing and economic justice, as well as a symbol of the longing for home.

As I noted in discussing the edited collection Material Vernaculars: Objects, Images, and Their Social Worlds last fall, it is my hope that many readers will purchase a beautiful paper or hardback edition of Framing Sukkot, thereby helping support the work of a great university press. One of the things that makes IU Press great is its commitment to building strategies for free and open access to scholarly writings. The Material Vernaculars series, co-published with the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, is part of that commitment. So, first let me note that you can buy copies of the book from a range of online booksellers, including Amazon and the IU Press itself. Secondly, let me show you where the free digital edition of the book lives. Hopefully by the time Sukkot ends, people around the world will be reading this great new book.

Once you are there, click on the “View/Open” link as shown in the image. Clicking should enable you to download a copy of the book.

Dr. Berlinger is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she is also the Babette S. and Bernard J. Tanenbaum Fellow in Jewish History and Culture within the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies. In addition to the new book, you can find a moving Sukkot-oriented post by Dr. Berlinger on the IU Press blog.

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About this Site

I am a Professor of Folklore, and of Anthropology, at Indiana University, where I also direct the Mathers Museum of World Cultures. This site provides information on my museum, teaching, and research work, while also conveying some news and information relating to students and colleagues with whom I work and the projects on which we collaborate.